Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Sports Sports Sports Sports

Some quick thoughts on the sports events I saw yesterday. First I watched about 40 overs of the West Indies-Pakistan opener of the Cricket World Cup. When we arrived at the bar, the Pakis had the Windies on 7-170 and on the ropes, but some crucial slogging by the bottom order brought their total to 240 and none of the Pakistani batters could build a partnership. Of course its way too early to be making statements about the outcome of the World Cup since the first round is all about the Big Fish not being upset by the minnows, but it looks like Pakistan is going to need a super-human performance from their 3-4-5 of Khan, Yosouf and Inzamam to have a chance of getting to the semis, since the rest of their team either bowling or batting doesn’t impress. The Windies, while not looking perfect, at least found out that their bowling can win games for them against quality batsmen. That’s key, since it was their biggest question mark coming into the tourney.

Second I went to the Bulls-Celtics game, where I went in about thirty seconds from paying 20 dollars for standing room seats to getting comped to Google’s luxury suite. After recovering from the giddiness of free beer and sandwiches, I came away with the following observations about the teams in question.

The Celtics have some pieces; Pierce is still Pierce albeit maybe giving 80 percent (fine by me, this year is worthless and he is back from injury,) Al is a crucial frontline piece going forward, Delonte has some serious off the bench scoring potential…

Other than that though: Gerald Green is Kedrick Brown part 2, (someone who can jump and nothing else,) Rondo can beat anyone off the dribble but can’t play PG, Perkins got destroyed on the boards, Telfair is a joke, Scalabrine would be a great tenth man on a good team, etc. etc.

As much as the world’s most visible Celtics’ fan (Bill Simmons,) fiends over Durant in every column he writes, I am here to say that if I had the first pick, I’d draft Oden. It’s about need right now, and Tyrus Thomas and Ben Wallace DESTROYED us on the boards and inside. We don’t need another scorer, even if Durant is a once in a life time offensive player, Oden could be a once in a lifetime defensive player. In the Big Ten Championship, Wisconsin was afraid to come within ten feet of the basket.

As for the Bulls, they have as good a chance as anyone to emerge from the East. The key to their success will be Tyrus Thomas; it’s a good thing that they didn’t trade him for Gasol since he’ll be a better player in two years. Regardless with Deng, Hinrich, and Gordon in the back court and Big Ben in the middle, they have the pieces.